Finechinagirl

Awash Ethiopian Cuisine

Awash Restaurant
947 Amsterdam Avenue
(btw 106th and 107th St)
New York, NY 10025
(212) 961-1416

*There’s also a downtown location in the East Village. Inquire to find out.*

If you’re hankering for meat and have absolute no time for etiquette and grace, Awash is the place for you. With class and elegance in the inside, picture shown below, here you can eat with your bare hands without having people staring.

This is the first time that I’ve ever been to an Ethiopian restaurant so this is all new to me. I’ve never really dine eating with my hands, besides a burger joint or something similar, but I was totally excited to do so.

The bf’s best friend and his wife totally love this place. When they make a trip to the city from Philly or Westchester, they always always come here. They loved the food and the honey wine so much that they of course wanted us to try it too. So after a long saturday day of unsuccessfully getting tickets to the Broadway play of our choice, my bf and I had no problem going uptown for some good eats.

When we finally arrived to the restaurant, I couldn’t help but notice a strong, strong, spicy aroma in the air. Hmmmm…… ahhhh. My starving stomach couldn’t resist the thick cajun aroma. If you’re not a fan of spice, then this isn’t the place for you. But be warn that there might be a wait at the door after 7:30 pm because this restaurant is quite small.

After ordering some wines, we quickly asked for appetizers.

To start things off, we ordered a meat sambusa ($7.50) and a vegetable sambusa ($7.00). Each dish comes with only 3 rolls. A sambusa is basically like a gigantic spring roll. Both look the same, except the contents inside are different. The vegetable sambusa has spiced veggies which includes Chinese Chives! Yeah, chinese chives in an Ethiopian restaurant. I am such a biggg fan of chives! I love it to death. It being spiced up and wrapped in a warm golden brown crust definitely makes it enjoyable!

Each bite is more satisfying than the next. But wait until you’ve tried the meat version. It is even better! The meat inside is moist and tender and spiced!! Delicious!! I can definitely eat a million of these!

Entrees

We all agreed to get the Meat combo and the Awash Special, $17 each . Besides it being more bang for your buck, you get to choose a variety of meats to try. A combo is more than enough to feed for two. It comes in a huge plate with this sponge-like bread underneath with all the meats and veggies on top. Being that we were all starving, we ordered two combos. It should be more than enough.

The way you eat it is, you get a roll of this sponge-like bread and you unravel this roll by breaking off pieces. You then take that piece, put it on top of the meat that you want to eat, grab it and stuff it in your mouth. Just be warned that you may need extra napkins. It does get a little messy.

I’m not a fan of this bread because it’s sour, like sourdough bread. Hey give me a bowl of rice any day and I will gladly chug down all the meat. But besides that complaint, I really enjoyed the beef, lamb, and chicken a lot. There’s a bean dip, some curry, turnips, and chives on the side for you to choose.

Overall I really love the food here. The waitresses and waiters are very courteous even though they were incredible busy. My bf’s friend and his wife made a great recommendation and we loved it and will try the East village one one day!

Alright, now I leave you with the city’s health inspection report!

AWASH RESTAURANT
947 AMSTERDAM AVENUE, MANHATTAN 10025
212-961-1416

Violation points: 7/28 - Passed!
Inspection Date: 02/01/2007

Violations were cited in the following area(s) and those requiring immediate action were addressed.

Sanitary Violations
1.) Evidence of roaches or live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.